Television food advertising to children: the extent and nature of exposure

Television food advertising to children: the extent and nature of exposure Objective: To describe the pattern and prevalence of food and drink advertisements to children on commercial television in Sydney, Australia, and compare these with advertising regulations set out in the Children’s Television Standards and results from a similar study in 2002. Design: Data were collected by recording television from 06.00 hours until 23.00 hours on all three commercial channels from Sunday 14 May 2006 to Saturday 20 May 2006 (357 h). The study analysed advertisements in two children’s viewing periods, one as defined in the 2002 study and the other according to current standards. Food advertisements were coded using 18 food categories and were analysed by time period and popular children’s programmes. Results: Food advertisements occurred in similar proportions during children’s viewing hours and adult’s viewing hours (25.5 vs. 26.9 % of all advertisements, respectively), although there was a higher rate of high-fat/high-sugar food advertisements during children’s viewing hours (49 vs. 39 % of all food advertisements, P, 0.001). There were even more advertisements for highfat / high-sugar foods during popular children’s programmes, contributing to 65.9 % of all food advertisements. Estimates of exposure indicate that children aged 5–12 years were exposed to 96 food advertisements, including 63 high-fat/high-sugar advertisements pe